William Pitt (the younger) was born on 28 May 1759 at Hayes Place, Kent, the second son of William Pitt (the elder), later 1st Earl of Chatham and himself Prime Minister. He matriculated at Pembroke College, Cambridge at the age …
...the Queen did not find Macmillan easy to deal with. He was unsure whether the Prime Minister’s annual visit to Balmoral was a social occasion, with ‘talking shop’ relegated to...
...April 1738 Died 30 October 1809, Bulstrode, Buckinghamshire Dates in office 1783 to 1783, 1807 to 1809 Political party Whig Major acts Treaty of Paris 1783: formal end to American...
...An unhappy Irish childhood was followed by study at Christ Church, Oxford and then military service. By 1760, having seen action in the Seven Years War (1756-63), he had risen...
...by George III as a safe pair of hands after serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Pitt the Elder and Grafton from 1767, it was to North that the...
...by Stalin and there was no sign that the Japanese leaders were ready to agree to surrender unconditionally. After the successful test at Alamogordo in New Mexico on 16 July...
There are various departments within the civil service which were, you could say, family affairs. The Foreign Office was undoubtedly the department in which this practice was the most spread. Appointments to the diplomatic service were often based upon recommendations and who …
How should a responsible government deal with the threat of military invasion? This question is not one that many British governments have had to consider. Yet for a 12-month period after May 1940 it was one that exercised those in …
This year marks the 800th anniversary of the granting of Magna Carta by King John. Today, the Great Charter is viewed as the foundation of many of our rights and liberties and throughout the year there are commemorations, exhibitions and …
The title quote of this piece in fact refers to married women in the civil service and comes from a document dated 1947 which states “To us, married women have been, to quote the Treasury – “a perfect nuisance” . …